Sam Mendes’ beautifully old-fashioned, emotional ode to cinema, and the cinemas of his youth, plays out on the seafront of the UK seaside town of Margate in the early 1980s. Empire Of Light, which the 1917 director wrote and directed, may go down the Cinema Paradiso route of hailing cinema as a communal panacea to whatever ails you (mental illness and racism in this case). But a well-drawn and -acted relationship between two troubled souls – the duty manager of the Empire Cinema, Hilary (Olivia Colman) and its latest employee Stephen (Micheal Ward) – turn this film into a treasure worthy of its own magnificently-crumbling Art Deco Screens 1 and 2.

Its message of love, tolerance and finding family wherever you can should make an impact in darkened rooms wherever it plays

Fionnuala Halligan, Screen Daily